The Alcock Album: Scenes of China Consular Life, 1843-1853

Andrew Hillier’s The Alcock Album: Scenes of China Consular Life, 1843-1853 (City University of Hong Kong Press) contains many paintings and sketches by Henrietta Alcock. Of great interest to me given my own writings on interwar female professional artists and “amateur lady artists” (as they were often called) in China – here on Anna Hotchkis and Mary Mullikin, Katharine Karl, and Katharine Jowett. Very interesting to see how many of Alock’s works show parts of China in the 1840s (especially the newly forced open treaty ports) nearly a century before many of these later women artists were working.

The Alcock Album is a collection of watercolours and sketches by Henrietta Alcock and her husband, the British Consul, Rutherford Alcock. This book presents artwork from the album and the stories behind them, providing a unique window into the first phases of consular life in treaty port China. Through these images, readers can get a glimpse of traditional. Chinese architecture, picturesque landscapes, and consular buildings, along with a picture of a happy, loving marriage and the significant role of consular wives during this period.